Nathaniel Hawthorne 



RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 



NEW VORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1879 

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Nathaniel Hawthorne 



BY 

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 





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NEW ;york > 




CHARLES SCRIBNER'S 


SONS 


1879 





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Copyright, 1879, by 
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 



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NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 



The family name of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
was spelled Hathorne until it was changed by 
him in early manhood to its present form. The 
head of the American branch of the family, 
William Hathorne, of Wilton, Wiltshire, Eng- 
land, emigrated with Winthrop and his com- 
pany, and arrived at Salem Bay, Mass., June 
12, 1630. He had grants of land at Dorchester, 
where he resided for upwards of six years, when 
he was persuaded to remove to Salem by the 
tender of further grants of land there, it being 
considered a public benefit that he should be- 
come an inhabitant of that town. He repre- 
sented his fellow-townsmen in the legislature, 
and served them in a military capacity as a cap- 
tain in the first regular troop organized in Salem, 
which he led to victory through an Indian cam- 
paign in Maine. Originally a determined " Sepa- 



4 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

ratist," and opposed to compulsion for conscience 
he signalized himself when a magistrate by the 
active part which he took in the Quaker persecu- 
tions of the time (1657-62), going so far on one 
occasion as to order the whipping of Anne Cole- 
man and four other Friends through Salem, 
Boston, and Dedham. He died, an old man, 
in the odor of sanctity, and left a good prop- 
erty to his son John, who inherited his father's 
capacity and intolerance, and was in turn a 
legislator, a magistrate, a soldier, and a bit- 
ter persecutor of witches. Before the death 
of Justice Hathorne in 17 17, the destiny of 
the family suffered a sea-change, and they be- 
gan to be noted as mariners. .One of these 
seafaring Hathornes figured in the Revolution 
as a privateer, who had the good fortune to es- 
cape from a British prison-ship ; and another. 
Captain Daniel Hathorne, has left his mark on 
early American ballad-lore. He too was a 
privateer, commander of the brig '' Fair Ameri- 
can," which, cruising off the coast of Portugal, 
fell in with a British scow laden with troops 
for General Howe, which scow the bold Ha- 
thorne and his valiant crew at once engaged, 
and fought for over an hour, until the van- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 5 

quished enemy was glad to cut the Yankee 
grapplings and quickly bear away. The last 
of the Hathornes with whom we are concerned 
was a son of this sturdy old privateer, Nathaniel 
Hathorne. He was born in 1776, and about 
the beginning of the present century married 
Miss Elizabeth Clarke Manning, a daughter of 
Richard Manning of Salem, whose ancestors 
emigrated to America about fifty years after 
the arrival of William Hathorne. Young Na- 
thaniel took his hereditary place before the 
mast, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, 
made voyages to the East and West Indies, 
Brazil, and Africa, and finally died of fever at 
Surinam, in the spring of 1808. He was the 
father of three children, the second of whom, 
Nathaniel, was born at Salem, July 4, 1804. 

After the death of her husband Mrs. Hathorne 
removed to the house of her father with her lit- 
tle family of children. Of the boyhood of Na- 
thaniel no particulars have reached us, except 
that he was fond of taking long walks alone, 
and that he used to declare to his mother that 
he would go to sea some time, and would never 
return. Among the books that he is known 
to have read as a child were Shakespeare, 



6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

Milton, Pope, and Thomson, The Castle of 
Indolence being an especial favorite. In the 
autumn of 1818 his mother removed to Ray- 
mond, a town in Cumberland county, Maine, 
where his uncle, Richard Manning, had built a 
large and ambitious dwelling. Here the lad re- 
sumed his solitary walks, exchanging the nar- 
row streets of Salem for the boundless, primeval 
wilderness, and its sluggish harbor for the fresh, 
bright waters of Sebago Lake. He roamed 
the woods by day, with his gun and rod, and in 
the moonlight nights of winter skated upon the 
lake alone till midnight. When he found 
himself away from home, and wearied with his 
exercise, he took refuge in a log cabin, where 
half a tree would be burning upon the hearth. 
He had by this time acquired a taste for writing, 
that showed itself in a little blank-book, in 
which he jotted down his woodland adventures 
and feelings, and which was remarkable for mi- 
nute observation and nice perception of nature. 
After a year's residence at Raymond, Na- 
thaniel returned to Salem in order to prepare 
for college. He amused himself by publishing 
a manuscript periodical, which he called the 
Spectator, and which displayed considerable 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 7 

vivacity and talent. He speculated upon the 
profession that he would follow, with a sort of 
prophetic insight into his future. " I do not 
want to be a doctor and live by men's dis- 
eases," he wrote to his mother, "nor a minister 
to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by 
their quarrels. So, I don't see that there is any- 
thing left for me but to be an author. How 
would you like some day to see a whole shelf 
full of books, written by your son, with ' Haw- 
thorne's Works' printed on their backs ? " 

Nathaniel entered Bowdoin College, Bruns- 
wick, Maine, in the autumn of 1821, where he 
became acquainted with two students who were 
destined to distinction — Henry W. Longfellow 
and Franklin Pierce. He was an excellent 
classical scholar, his Latin compositions, even 
in his freshman year, being remarkable for 
their elegance, while his Greek (which was less) 
was good. He made graceful translations from 
the Roman poets, and wrote several Enghsh 
poems which were creditable to him. After his 
graduation, three years later, he returned to 
Salem, and to a life of isolation. He devoted 
his mornings to study, his afternoons to writing, 
and his evenings to long walks along the rocky 



8 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

coast. He was scarcely known by sight to his 
townsmen, and he held so little communication 
with the members of his own family that his 
meals were frequently left at his locked door. 
He wrote largely, but destroyed many of his 
manuscripts, his taste was so difficult to please. 
He thought well enough, however, of one of 
his compositions to print it anonymously in 
1828. A crude melodramatic story, entitled 
Fanshawe it was unworthy even of his im- 
mature powers, and should never have been 
rescued from the oblivion which speedily over- 
took it. The name of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
finally became known to his countrymen as a 
writer in The Token, a holiday annual which was 
commenced in 1828 by Mr. S. G. Goodrich 
(better known as "Peter Parley"), by whom 
it was conducted for fourteen years. This for- 
gotten publication numbered among its con- 
tributors most of the prominent American 
writers of the time, none of whom appear to 
have added to their reputation in its pages, ex- 
cept the least popular of all — Hawthorne, who 
was for years the obscurest man of letters in 
America, though he gradually made admirers 
in a quiet way. His first public recognition 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 9 

came from England, where his genius was dis- 
covered in 1835 by the late Henry F. Chorley, 
one of the editors of the AtJienceum, in which 
he copied three of Hawthorne's most character- 
istic papers from The Token. He had but 
little encouragement to continue in literature, 
for Mr. Goodrich was so much more a publisher 
than an author that he paid him wretchedly for 
his contributions, and still more wretchedly for 
his work upon an American Magazine of Use- 
ful and Entertaining Knowledge, which he per- 
suaded him to edit. This author-publisher con- 
sented, however, at a later period (1837) to 
bring out a collection of Hawthorne's writings 
under the title of Twice-told Tales. A mod- 
erate edition was got rid of, but the great body 
of the reading public ignored the book alto- 
gether. It was generously reviewed in the North 
American Review by his college friend Long- 
fellow, who said it came from the hand of a 
man of genius, and praised it for the exceeding 
beauty of its style, which was as clear as run- 
ning waters. 

The want of pecuniary success which had so 
far attended his authorship led Hawthorne to 
accept a situation which was tendered him by 



lO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, collector of 
the port of Boston under the Democratic rule 
of President Van Buren. He was appointed a 
weigher in the custom-house at a salary of about 
$1,200 a year, and entered upon the duties of 
his office, which consisted for the most part in 
measuring coal, salt, and other bulky commod- 
ities on foreign vessels. It was irksome em- 
ployment, but faithfully performed for two 
years, when he was superseded through a 
change in the national administration. Master 
of himself once more, he returned to Salem, 
where he remained until the spring of 1841, 
when he wrote a collection of children's stories 
entitled Grandfather s Chair, and joined an 
industrial association at West Roxbury, Mass. 
Brook Farm, as it was called, was a social Uto- 
pia, composed of a number of advanced think- 
ers, whose object was so to distribute manual 
labor as to give its members time for intellectual 
culture% The scheme worked admirably — on 
paper, but it was suited neither to the tempera- 
ment nor the taste of Hawthorne, and after try- 
ing it patiently for nearly a year he returned to 
the everyday life of mankind. 

One of Hawthorne's earliest admirers was 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. II 

Miss Sophia Peabody, a lady of Salem, whom 
he married in the summer of 1842. He made 
himself a new home in an old manse, at Con- 
cord, Mass., situated on historic ground, in sight 
of an old revolutionary battle-field, and devo- 
ted himself diligently to literature. He was 
known to the few by his Tivice-told TaleSy 
and to the many by his papers in the Demo- 
cratic Revieiv. He published in 1842 a second 
portion of Grandfather's Chair, and in 1845 
a second volume of Twice-told Tales. He 
edited, during the latter year, the African 
Journals of Horatio Bridge, an officer of the 
navy, who had been at college with him ; and 
in the following year he published in two vol- 
umes a collection of his later writings, under 
the title oi Mosses from an Old Manse. 

After a residence of nearly four years at Con- 
cord, Hawthorne returned to Salem, having 
been appointed surveyor of the custom-house 
of that port by a new Democratic administra- 
tion. He filled the duties of this position until 
the incoming of the Whig administration again 
led to his retirement. He seems to have written 
little during his official term, but, as he had 
leisure enough and to spare, he read much, and 



12 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

pondered over subjects for future stories. His 
next work, The Scarlet Letter, which was be- 
gun after his nemoval from the custom-house, 
was pubHshed in 1850. If there had been any 
doubt of his genius before, it was settled for- 
ever by this powerful romance. 

Shortly after the publication of The Scarlet 
Letter Hawthorne removed from Salem to 
Lenox, Berkshire, Mass., where he wrote The 
House of the Seven Gables (185 1) and The 
Wonder-Book (1851). From Lenox he re- 
moved to West Newton, near Boston, Mass., 
where he wrote The Blithedale Romance 
(1852) and The Snow hnage and other Twice- 
told Tales (1852). In the spring of 1852 
he removed back to Concord, where he pur- 
chased an old house which he called The Way- 
side, and where he wrote a Life of Franklin 
Pierce (1852) and Tanglew&od Tales (1853). 
Mr. Pierce was the Democratic candidate for 
the presidency, and it was only at his urgent 
solicitation that Hawthorne consented to be- 
come his biographer. He declared that he 
would accept no office in case he were elected, 
lest it might compromise him, but his friends 
gave him such weighty reasons for reconsider- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 1 3 

ing his decision that he accepted the consulate 
at Liverpool, which was understood to be one 
of the best gifts at the disposal of the President. 

Hawthorne departed for Europe in the sum- 
mer of 1853, and returned to the United States 
in the summer of i860. Of the seven years 
which he passed in Europe five were spent in 
attending to the duties of his consulate at 
Liverpool, and in little journeys to Scotland, 
the Lakes, and elsewhere, and the remaining 
two in France and Italy. They were quiet 
apa uneventful, colored by observation and re- 
jection, as his note-books show, but produc- 
tive of only one elaborate work, T/ie Marble 
Faun, which he sketched out during his resi- 
dence in Italy, and rewrote and prepared for 
the press at Leamington, England, whence it 
was dispatched to America and published in 
i860. 

Hawthorne took up his abode at The Way- 
side, not much richer than when he left it, and 
sat down at his desk once more with a heavy 
heart. He was surrounded by the throes of a 
great civil war, and the political party with which 
he had always acted was under a cloud. His 
friend ex-President Pierce was stigmatized as a 



14 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

traitor, and when Hawthorne dedicated his next 
book to him — a volume of English impressions 
entitled Our Old Home (1863)— it was at the 
risk of his own popularity. His pen was soon 
to be laid aside forever ; for, with the exception 
of the unfinished story of Septimius Feltotty 
which was published after his death by his 
daughter Una (1872), and the fragment of The 
Dolliver Romance^ the beginning of which was 
published in the Atlantic MoittJily in July, 1864, 
he wrote no more. His health gradually de- 
clined ; his hair grew white as snow, and the 
once stalwart figure that in early manhood 
flashed along the airy cliffs and glittering sands 
sauntered idly on the little hill behind his house. 
In the beginning of April, 1864, he made a 
short southern tour with his publisher Mr. 
William D. Ticknor, and was benefited by the 
change of scene until he reached Philadelphia, 
where he was shocked by the sudden death of 
Mr. Ticknor. He returned to The Wayside, 
and after a short season of rest joined his friend 
ex-President Pierce. He died at Plymouth, 
New Hampshire, on May 19, 1864, and five 
days later was buried at Sleepy Hollow, a beauti- 
ful cemetery at Concord, where he used to walk 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 1$ 

under the pines when he was Hving at the Old 
Manse, and where his ashes moulder under a 
simple stone, inscribed with the single word 
" Hawthorne." 

The writings of Hawthorne are marked by 
subtle imagination, curious power of analysis, 
and exquisite purity of diction. He studied 
exceptional developments of character, and was 
fond of exploring secret crypts of emotion. His 
shorter stories are remarkable for originality 
and suggestiveness, and his larger ones are as 
absolute creations as Hamlet or Undine. Lack- 
ing the accomplishment of verse, he was in the 
highest sense a poet. His work is pervaded by 
a manly personality, and by an almost feminine 
delicacy and gentleness. He inherited the grav- 
ity of his Puritan ancestors without their super- 
stition, and learned in his solitary meditations a 
knowledge of the night-side of life which would 
have filled them with suspicion. A profound 
anatomist of the heart, he was singularly free 
from morbidness, and in his darkest speculations 
concerning evil was robustly right-minded. He 
worshipped conscience with his intellectual as 
well as his moral nature ; it is supreme in all he 
wrote. Besides these mental traits, he possessed 



l6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

the literary quality of style — a grace, a charm, 
a perfection of language which no other Ameri- 
can writer ever possessed in the same degree, 
and which places him among the great masters 
of English prose. 



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The Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE. 



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The extraordinary scope of Mr. Gladstone's learning — the wonder ol 
his friends and enemies alike — and his firm grasp of every subject he 
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collection and publication in permanent shape were of course certain to 
be undertaken sooner or later; and now that they are so published with 
the benefit of his own revision, they will need little heralding in England 
or America. 

What Mr. Gladstone has written in the last thirty-six years — the period 
covered by this collection — has probably had the attention of as large an 
English-speaking public as any writer on political and social topics ever 
reached in his own life-time. The papers which he has chosen as of 
lasting value, and included here under the title of Gleanings of Past 
Years, will form the standard edition of his miscellanies, both for his 
present multitude of readers, and for those wlio will study his writing! 
Uter. 



Vol. i. The Throne, and the Prince Consort; 
The Cabinet, and Constitution. 
Vol. II.— Personal and Literary. 
Vol. III.— Historical and Speculative. 
Vol. IV.— Foreign. 

Vol. V. 
Vol. VI. 
Vol. Vil.— Miscellaneous. 

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